Monday, March 8, 2010

Weekend Chores

For the past few days we've been enjoying truly wonderful weather here in New England. It is indeed a nice change from the torrential rain and cold winds we experienced not too long ago. This past weekend, I was able to get out into the garden to do a bit of cleanup and digging. While the recent rains caused my garden to flood for a few days, it also helped to thaw out the soil. Even the beds that were left uncovered this winter were easy to turn over.

I went ahead and transplanted some of my cool weather greens (Shanghai bok choy, Mizuna and Tuscan Kale) underneath one of my mini hoop houses. Admittedly, I neglected to harden them off beforehand. Regardless of this, they seem to have adjusted to the protected environment just fine. Our nights are averaging near freezing, but the days are warming up dramatically. With the increasing sunlight, I have to be more diligent about venting my hoops as temperatures inside are now reaching into the low 80's at mid-day. In fact, my spinach is already showing signs of heat stress.

It felt really good to get my hand dirty. The soil blocks were incredibly easy to transplant and I'm happy to say that none of my seedlings were damaged in the process. Hopefully, I can start to harvest some Mizuna and bok choy at the end of this month.

In other news, the overwintered chives are starting to sprout again...

...and my hard-neck garlic is finally showing some signs of life.

The spring growing season has officially begun! I hope you all are as excited as I am!

Is it wrong that I want to wear my dirty fingernails as some kind of accessory?? It felt so good to dig in the dirt this weekend.

I got a lot done before the rains came last night. Turned and shifted the compost, starting turning the soil behind the orchard for a new garden space, seeded a raised bed with lettuce and spinach, and planted two grape vines! Ah...heaven!

How nice. The first step for me is the snow melting. Once the snow melts I will be able to put in my first garden. Then I will dig a second and third. The second and third I plan to plant for late fall and late winter harvests.

It seems that Spring really does *spring* forth in cold climates like yours. Around here the change sneaks up on you. It seems like winter drags on and it won't stop raining (or it won't start in dry years), and then you realize how much the garden has grown and there's flowers - aha, it must be spring!

I was stressing over my zero germination on my chive seeds but was pleasantly surprised to see a decent sized clump in the garden yesterday! Not only did I forget I had some in there that I chopped back last fall, but that tells you how infrequently I was checking on my beds... ooops!!

I checked yesterday and my soil finally thawed too. This warm spell really got things going. Weather.com tells me that for the next ten days I won't even see below freezing weather. Too bad I don't have some early transplants to put out. Usually our March weather isn't so nice, so I haven't prepared for it.